


they who made you/they made me too

by badacts



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Bodyswap, Brothers, F/M, Family, M/M, tw in notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2019-11-14 07:42:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18048425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: Aaron and Andrew have a fight, and then wake up in the wrong bodies. It's an enlightening experience.





	1. quiet like you/violent like you

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about brothers. It really wasn't meant to get so long.
> 
> Title from Wye Oak's 'Fish'.
> 
> TW: themes/topics include panic attacks, mental illness, psychiatric medications, addiction (all more in-depth than canon but more realistically dealt with). Hit me up on tumblr for more information.

Once upon a time, anger was the only thing that kept Aaron Minyard alive. Now, he spends most of his time trying to live in spite of it.

It’s what makes him and Andrew different, at the heart of it. Aaron had anger - Andrew just had brutal, stupid determination to stay alive at any cost. Maybe that’s a sign of the depths Andrew sank to, or maybe it’s how they’re intrinsically different. Aaron wonders about it, sometimes: nature versus nurture, or whatever their particular equivalent of ‘nurture’ was, the building blocks that make them so similar and so different all at once.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever understand his brother. These last few years, he’s started to think that maybe he doesn’t need to. 

But sometimes, he still wants to grab Andrew and shake him until...not the truth, but something Aaron can  _ understand _ falls out.

“Where is he?” Aaron demands of the two idiots sitting on the couch. Kevin mumbles something without taking his eyes off of the laptop screen, but Neil gives Aaron one of his inscrutable stares.

After a moment, he looks back to the laptop. “Up on the roof, probably.”

Aaron turns on his heel, letting the door slam behind him. He’s never been on the roof because it’s always been Andrew’s territory, but he doesn’t let that stop him from stomping up the stairs and out through the access door with its ruined lock.

True to Neil’s prediction, Andrew is sitting cross-legged a safe distance from the edge, cigarette between his index and middle fingers of one hand and his phone in the other. He says, without turning, “What do you want?”

It figures Neil would text him to warn him. For some reason that makes Aaron angrier. He says, “Were you ever going to say anything?”

That does earn him a look, though it’s disinterested. Aaron uncurls his clenching fingers, letting a piece of paper go. The wind picks it up, but Andrew puts his cigarette in his mouth and catches it out of the air. He looks at it for a moment and then lets it go again, where it rolls towards the edge of the roof and then over, falling.

“I didn’t realise you read Court,” Andrew says. 

Aaron does, which is why he’d seen the article about Andrew’s supposed new signing. “Is it true?”

“Why do you care?”

_ Because it’s my city _ , Aaron doesn’t say. Katelyn had said something about distance making the heart grow fonder, smirking and hard-eyed, but Aaron had mostly been looking forward to putting at least a state or two between himself and his brother for the foreseeable future.

Perelman. Aaron hasn’t let himself want much, because he knows how that tends to end for him, but now, with something within reach that he’s barely let himself dream about, Andrew is potentially about to ruin it. And maybe that’s a strong way of phrasing it, but, for once, Aaron wants to stand alone, without Andrew overshadowing him, and see what happens.

“Why there?” Aaron demands, instead of answering.

“Money,” Andrew says, taking a drag from his cigarette. “I’m not stupid enough to turn down a seven-figure contract just because you think you own Pennsylvania now. Besides, you haven’t gotten in yet.”

That - it hurts. And just like always, the old anger rises until it threatens to choke him. “Is it money, or proximity? Scared your boytoy will lend his ass to someone else if you go to the other coast?”

Andrew doesn’t twitch. “Maybe I want to come over for dinner once a week at your place. Play families. Or maybe I just didn’t even think about you.”

“You can’t follow me around anymore,” Aaron says, half over top of him.

“Following you? Oh, of course. I forgot that that is what you like to call keeping you alive and off heroin,” Andrew says. It sounds like  _ you owe me _ . There’s no tracery of anything in his voice besides disinterest. Aaron knows what anger looks like on him, and he wants that with a white-hot intensity that he couldn’t explain if he tried. 

“That’s not-”

“That’s exactly what I did. You certainly can’t take credit for it. I won’t hold it against you if you pretend for your entrance essay, though.”

“Are you hoping I’ll shut up out of gratitude then?”

“I don’t care what you have to say,” Andrew says, brutal like he always is. “And whatever this issue is about - I don’t care about that either.”

The taste in the back of Aaron’s throat is frustration, and he despises it. “You could go anywhere. Why  _ there? _ ”

“Do you think I lied, before?” Andrew says, inexorable. “I signed for the money. You,” he looks Aaron up and down, and his expression, dull, still manages to convey that he finds Aaron wanting, “didn’t factor into it at all.”

Aaron, cut to the quick no matter how hard he tries to tell himself what Andrew says doesn’t matter, is an animal backed into a corner. And, predictably, he bites. “You talk a big game.”

Andrew twitches a brow. “Do I?”

“Yeah.” Aaron’s mouth is curled up into a smile, but there’s no humour in it. “Since when did you give a fuck about money?”

Andrew doesn’t answer. Aaron has his attention now, though.

“You’re not good enough at being alone to pretend that you really don’t care about anyone,” Aaron says, almost gently. 

It’s true, too. Andrew needs human interaction, even though he’s fucking terrible at it. Even though he needs deals as a justification to keep people close to him. And maybe he doesn’t love them - maybe he can’t - but Aaron can’t let him say it’s just out of convenience. He has self-awareness enough to know that’s not what he himself is, let alone Kevin Day and Neil fucking Josten.

“What is it that you want, exactly?” 

“You to tell me the truth, for once,” Aaron replies immediately. “Not some vague concept that you know I can’t understand.”

“So you want me to tell you what you want to hear, then.”

“No.” Aaron swallows the cruelty back, that remnant of his own upbringing. “I want to know if you signed to a professional team in Philadelphia because of me.” 

His voice is bare now, the anger banked back down. This is the truth underneath it. 

Andrew grinds his cigarette out, having smoked it to the filter. He says, “Why does it matter?”

Aaron has had a fuckload of therapy over the last few years, even if he sat silent through a lot of it. That’s maybe the only reason he can admit he’s been living in limbo. Andrew kept him firmly leashed and dragged him out of depressive addiction and into fucking  _ university.  _ Now the collar is off. Aaron has known since their hellish sophomore year that Andrew did what he did out of twisted protective devotion, but that’s done now. And since, Aaron has been wondering whether that meant Andrew was done with him, too.

Mostly, he’s been sure that after graduation they would never talk again - not much of a leap when they barely talk while they live next door to one another. And maybe he’d been resigned to that, for lack of a better term. Maybe the certainty of it was something he’d prepared for, and now he’s off balance. Maybe it’s what he wanted, maybe it’s not, but mostly, right now, he just wants to know this one thing for sure.

_ Do you actually care about me? Or was I just a convenient anchor for you that you replaced? _

“It just does,” Aaron says, because that’s the only answers he’s got.

Andrew pushes himself up. He’s clearly aiming for the door, but Aaron steps in front of it and he stops outside of arm's reach rather than bulling straight through him.

Aaron waits for a long moment, watching. Being face to face like this is a twisted reminder of their first meeting in the flesh, where knowledge of having an identical twin finally had a head on collision with seeing his own mirror image.

His harder, darker reflection, the man who knows how to hit where it hurts. So Aaron shouldn’t be surprised that Andrew almost, almost smiles, and says, “Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

Then he steps around Aaron and leaves.

“Fuck it,” Aaron says to himself in the wake of the door slamming, his voice snatched away by the wind.

There’s a gentle squeak as the door swings open again behind him. A reluctant voice says, “Aaron?”

“What?” Aaron snarls at Robin. He doesn’t mind her in theory, but right now he was really looking forward to five whole minutes of privacy.

“...are you alright?” she asks, wide-eyed and mousy. 

“Fuck off,” he tells her, because the last thing he can deal with right now is someone else’s fear. He gives her half a second to jump out of his way before he pushes back inside.

“Well, okay,” he hears her mutter before he clatters down the stairs.

 

* * *

Afterwards, of course, Aaron dreams.

He’s alone. That’s a recurrence: he lived like that for sixteen years, after all. Even the most mild of his dreams have the pervasive sensation of being the only person left alive.

The dream is familiar, too. He’s sitting at a table in an interrogation room, staring at his own reflection in a one-way mirror. There’s blood smeared on his face and soaked into his shirt.

He’s alone in silence. His heart is beating out of his chest, but he can’t feel a thing. He just knows no one is coming for him, and that even if he gets out of the room there’s nothing waiting for him on the other side of the door.

That follows him, shaking, into reality when the dream starts to break apart. He’s digging his nails into his palms, teeth gritted, all methods to stop himself crying out or moving or drawing attention. He’s a little fearful creature when he’s in too much pain to be anything else.

“Andrew,” a familiar but unexpected voice is saying from far too close. Aaron flinches and bangs his elbow, which is enough to jerk him into full wakefulness.

“It’s just me,” that voice says again, and when Aaron opens his eyes to find himself looking at Neil Josten from six inches away he rolls straight out of bed.

 

* * *

“There’s no way you’re actually this relaxed about this,” Aaron snaps. “I don’t believe it.”

Andrew has a head start on Aaron in terms of coping, because  _ he _ didn’t wake up with his brother’s significant other, but Aaron doubts he’s as unbothered as he pretends to be for a whole host of reasons, starting with waking in a strange bed.

“You can believe what you like,” Andrew replies blandly. His hands are at three and nine on the steering wheel. Of course, it’s a fucking Wednesday and they’re on their way to see Betsy.

“Thanks for the permission,” Aaron snarls, mostly because he hates that he doesn’t know what to do about this. Helplessness doesn’t sit well with him at all. Of course, asking his brother for help doesn’t, either. He swallows. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“Nothing,” Andrew says. “We wait it out. You will make your excuses with the cheerleader. My body is as good as yours for going to class and practice.”

That’s…partly true. They’re identical genetically, but there’s a whole host of things that’ve happened to them both since birth, physically and otherwise. For a start, their brains are both fucked up, but in complicatedly different ways. Also, Andrew’s shoulders are stretching out all of Aaron’s shirts.

“Just keep those armbands on,” Andrew says.

“They’ve got fucking knives in them, Andrew! Fuck.” Yeah, actually, Aaron isn’t coping well at all. 

“You knew that already.”

“When I stab myself, it’s going to be your body I’m stabbing,” Aaron reminds, and then pauses, rewinding a bit. “Did you take my medication?”

There’s no flicker of surprise on Andrew’s face, but Aaron can feel the focussing of his attention. Andrew, for all his silences, is not particularly subtle. “No.”

Aaron turns to his backpack, where he keeps an extra dose. He doesn’t quite throw it at Andrew’s head, but it’s tempting. “Here.”

Andrew looks away from the road to glance at the bottle. “That is an antipsychotic.”

“Your powers of observation are astounding,” Aaron says, ignoring the unlevel motion of his heart in his chest. It’s not just that Andrew doesn’t know - it’s that  _ no one _ knows. Katelyn sees him taking it, but he hasn’t told and she hasn’t asked. 

“I’m not taking it.”

“I would have thought you’d had enough of withdrawal,” Aaron says through his teeth, “But it’s not your brain to fuck up.”

“You are not psychotic.”

Aaron doesn’t dignify that with a response. “ _ It’s not your brain to fuck up.” _

Andrew flicks him a look, there and then gone. Then he lifts a hand off the wheel and takes the bottle from Aaron’s fingers. “Fine.”

Aaron watches him deftly unscrew the lid and dry swallow the contents. 

“Happy now?” Andrew asks.

“Not even vaguely,” Aaron replies.

 

* * *

Craving, a familiar old friend, creeps up on him as the panic starts to fade.

It’s never actually left. Mostly, it’s a quiet hunger in the back of his head, so faint he can sometimes ignore it entirely. But it’s always there. Waiting.

Sudden emotional backlash - like swapping bodies with your twin, for example - is enough to ignite the itch for something, anything, to block it out. There’s a tracery of that, but the immediate is something more subtle. Like when he goes without coffee for too long.

That doesn’t work, but he tries it more than once anyway. 

When he stomps into Andrew’s room between classes, Andrew takes one look at him and tosses something at him underarm. Aaron catches it without a thought, and then looks down.

It’s a pack of cigarettes. Of fucking course it is.

“I’m getting nicotine patches,” Aaron snarls, and storms out.

 

* * *

Evening practice is the fucking worst. Andrew’s body  _ isn’t _ as good as Aaron’s, because Andrew is a goalkeeper who spends twice the time lifting weights as he does on cardio. It’s like controlling an oversensitive machine, all quick-twitch reactions and not enough stamina. After fifteen minutes he’s panting, and he keeps fumbling catches like a freshman. A  _ high school _ freshman.

Andrew, of course, avoids looking like an idiot by standing unmoving in goal while the others score around him.

Coach collars Aaron as he walks off the court, dragging him away from the others. Once they’re  _ mostly _ out of earshot he crosses his arms and says, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Aaron replies. It’s weird recognising that his voice would usually sound sullen where instead the word just comes out flat. It’s not really a reflection of what he feels, just a quirk of Andrew’s body.

Coach just looks unimpressed. “Try again.”

Aaron opens his mouth to repeat himself, this time with more attitude, but instead he finds himself saying, “What does it matter?”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Coach says, shaking his head. “Let me tell you what I can figure out for myself. Something is going on with you and Andrew.”

“Why isn’t he here, then?” After all, Andrew tends to end up as everyone’s focus, for one reason or another. 

“Because he would just tell me what the issue is, and that would be too easy.”

“Whatever,” Aaron says, but when he goes to step past and leave, a heavy arm drops across in front of him to stop him. He halts before running into it, and says through his teeth, “Just leave it.”

“Would if I could, kid. But as it happens, we have a game this weekend, and you’re one of my best backliners, so I’d like to make sure you can actually catch a ball by then.”

Abruptly, Aaron loses his patience. He surprises himself when he smashes his racquet against the plexiglass next to them, and Wymack actually jerks. The racquet drops, rolling across the ground and under the bench, but Aaron is already halfway out of there.

A hand claps down on his shoulder to stop him, but he jerks free. Someone snarls, “ _ don’t touch me, _ ” and he honestly doesn’t realise it’s him until Wymack has snatched his hand back.

He leaves. No one talks to him in the locker room, and that’s lucky for them.

 

* * *

He can’t avoid Katelyn without consequences, and he wouldn’t even if he could. So when she invites him to her dorm, he goes.

“Hey,” she says, her smile warm and familiar as he lets himself into her suite. She’s cross-legged in front of the coffee table with books spread out in front of her. “The girls went out for dinner.”

“So you decided to study?” Aaron asks, shedding his coat. He’s wearing long sleeves rather than the stupid armbands, though he’s been keeping the thumbholes carefully hooked up. 

“So I decided to invite you over,” she corrects. They’re past the stage where her friends look at him suspiciously all the time to the point where they and Aaron get along, but it’s still nice to spend time alone together. Well, time alone together not in bed.

Aaron looks at her notes and sighs. “Mind if I put the TV on while you finish up?”

“Sure,” she says, patting the couch behind her. “You okay?”

“Better now,” he says truthfully, and drops himself onto the couch.

It’s easy, being together like this now. At first, with the secrecy and the stupidity, they seemed to compact all the complexity of getting to know one another into whatever moments Aaron could spare. It worked out, but it meant learning to just be quiet with each other was something they figured out after they fell in love. Aaron, of course, is quiet by nature  _ and _ experience, but Katelyn had always been expected to fill the silence and do it well. 

This is better.

He’s deep into an episode of NCIS when the couch dips with Katelyn’s weight. She insinuates herself into his space with ease, warm and comfortable, one of her hands resting on his thigh. 

“You know the teacher did it, right?” she says, and then laughs against his shoulder when he hushes her.

She’s right, of course. When the episode finishes and moves onto something else, he breathes out another sigh into her hair. The shampoo she uses smells of coconut.

“Sure you’re feeling okay?” she asks into her chest. Somehow the question doesn’t bring the simmering anger from earlier back to the surface - probably because Aaron knows for a fact that she’s asking out of concern for him, not for the Fox defensive line.

“Long day,” he admits.

“Things go okay with Betsy?”

“Yeah.” Admittedly, Aaron had sat in silence the whole time, which Betsy had allowed, though she had given him a look that said as clear as day that she was writing the word ‘regression’ in his notes.

“Practice?”

“Terrible,” he says promptly, which makes her laugh again. She takes her head off his shoulder, brown eyes gleaming into the light from the TV, and then she kisses him warm and familiar.

Aaron sinks into it. She tastes like caramel, her favourite ice cream that she must have had before he showed up, and everything about her, though familiar, immediately sends a wave of heat through him, building in his belly. His heartbeat picks up, a buzz jittering his fingers against her arms.

It hits him suddenly, in a rush - this is not his body.

He’s known that the whole time, but he abruptly feels not like an interloper, but like a traitor. This body belongs to someone to views some of the most innocuous touches as assaults. And suddenly, Aaron’s skin - scarred, borrowed - wants to crawl off.

“Aaron,” Katelyn is saying, her voice mostly calm, “It’s okay. Just breathe.” That’s when he realises that he’s having a panic attack.

“Sorry,” he gasps, and pushes himself up. She’s already moved away from him, because this isn’t the first time he’s lost it in front of her.

He needs to - go. Get away from her before he hurts her, before he lashes out, before she touches him in his not-body again, before he drops dead of a heart attack in front of her.

“Aaron, sweetheart, you can go in my room,” she says as he makes for the door, but she doesn’t touch him, or try to stop him. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

She’s still repeating that when he closes the door and stumbles into the hall.

He goes. Without rhyme or reason, half-convinced he’s going to die at any second. He’s not fast, but he is determined, because if he stops moving his feet there’ll be no rhythm to remind him to breathe other than his wild heart rate. So he just - walks. Stumbles. Makes it out of Katelyn’s building. Somehow doesn’t get hit by a car.

By the time he comes to a stop, he’s panting but not hyperventilating. He’s in an all-over cold sweat, and the second he stops he collapses onto the kerb in a loose-fitting bundle of limbs. It’s always like this: panic, and then abrupt exhaustion.

He’s left his coat, of course. It’s Spring, but early enough that it’s still biting cold at night in one layer. He also has to look around carefully before he has any fucking idea where the hell he is. Panic Attack Aaron has stumbled all the way to the far side of campus where the fine arts buildings are, and he only recognises them by name when he squints at the signs.

It’s dark. He's shivering. He considers his options and realises that he really only has one right now. He fumbles for his phone, thankfully in his jeans pocket rather than his jacket, and dials with rubbery fingers.

Andrew answers on the third ring. “What?”

“Come pick me up,” Aaron says.


	2. air is your permanent struggle to breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all should never trust me when I post a chapter count because I've never met a topic I wouldn't wank on and on over.
> 
> The trigger warnings from chapter one stand.

Of course, Andrew brings Neil with him. Thankfully Aaron is in no state to care as he crawls into the backseat and thumps the door shut behind him.

“Do I need to take you to Abby?” Andrew asks before he even pulls back onto the road. His voice sounds bland, but that he’s asking means Aaron has freaked him out.

“No,” Aaron mumbles into the upholstery. It smells vaguely of cigarette smoke.

There’s an expectant silence from the front seat, and then firm fingers prod at his face until he rolls it to face the windshield. The roof light flickers on. Neil says, “Open your eyes.”

Aaron does so, though he has to squint. Neil murmurs to Andrew, “Pupils are fine.”

“I didn’t use,” Aaron says. He’s aiming for pissed, would settle for offended, but just gets meal-mouthed again.

“I’m more concerned you have a head injury, to be honest,” Neil replies. He cups Aaron’s undoubtedly clammy forehead.

Aaron bats his hand away. “Just take me back to the Tower.”

“паническая атака,” Neil says, and Andrew finally guides the car back onto the road.

Aaron fumbles his phone out and sends a quick message to Katelyn. _Im ok._ He figures she’ll forgive him the brevity this once. Then he lets his arm slump down into the footwell, phone and all.

The next thing he knows, the car is stationary and the door is opening by his head. After a moment, Nicky says, “Should I just carry him?”

“Leave him,” Andrew says, and then the car bobbles with weight, rocking Aaron a little. When he blinks his eyes open, Andrew is half-kneeling in the footwell, his face hanging above Aaron’s.

It’s Aaron’s face. A little more freckled, a little more creased about the eyes, but barely different from the one Aaron’s wearing right now. They’ve played that trick plenty of times before - maybe this is just karma.

“Open your mouth,” Andrew says, sounding like he’ll pry Aaron’s jaw open if he has to. Aaron obliges without much thought. Apparently he can’t really think right now anyway.

Andrew drops something onto his tongue. “Swallow.”

Aaron obliges, and then pushes himself onto his hands and knees. They feel a long, long way from his head, and it’s only a quick save that stops him from going face-first onto the asphalt.

For some reason, smashing what is technically Andrew’s nose with his own idiocy seems really fucking funny. Aaron hears laughter, and after a moment realises that he’s the one laughing. Then, he realises he can’t stop.

"Fuck," Nicky says.

“Take him,” Andrew commands, which is how Aaron ends his evening slung over Nicky’s shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

 

* * *

 

Things get hazy, go away for a while, and then become clearer again. He’s slow and warm, none of the ice-cold jittering panic from earlier.

Andrew has a secret benzo stash, apparently. Aaron, firmly rolled up in blankets, might care about that later, but he certainly doesn’t care right now.

“Okay?” Someone asks from nearby. Aaron diverts his gaze from the wall across from him to the origin of the voice, and finds Neil lying across a beanbag chair positioned near Aaron’s head with a textbook balanced in front of him. Aaron just blinks at him.

Unbothered by the lack of response, Neil says, “I texted Katelyn. She knows you’re back. She’s okay.”

Aaron is the one with something wrong with him, not Katelyn, but it’s still a weight off of what’s left of his functioning brain.

“Andrew just went to take a shower, and Nicky went back to your suite. We thought you should stay here tonight.”

“Why’re you talking?” Aaron mutters.

Neil turns a page. “It helps.”

“What?”

There’s a sigh. “When Andrew has an episode, it helps if I talk to him.”

“‘m not Andrew.”

“No kidding,” Neil says. “Go to sleep, Aaron.”

“Fuck off,” Aaron replies, but he’s asleep not long later anyway.

 

* * *

 

The amazing part is that he wakes up and, for the most part, feels fine. He might have to write a dissertation on substance abuse disorders amongst twins, because even as his brain remembers the unconcerned soft high from last night, his borrowed body doesn’t seem to give two shits.

Except he’s dying for a fucking cigarette.

“Have you been watching me sleep?” he asks without opening his eyes.

“No,” Andrew replies, and then there’s a click as a mug is lowered on the table near his head. “I thought there was a chance you might bolt when you woke up.”

“I’m not an idiot.” He pushes himself up to sit, rubbing at his face. Andrew has taken the bean bag Neil was in yesterday, tousle-haired and still in the sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt he sleeps in.

“Debatable,” Andrew says. “I told you to stay away from her.”

“Whatever,” Aaron replies. “Hypocritical of you to get shitty about taking my medication and then giving me yours, by the way.”

“I’ve never used them.”

“So you’re just a masochist, then,” Aaron says, because he _isn’t_ an idiot: maybe he’s the one with the more stereotypical addictions, but there’s nothing normal about an addict keeping around drugs and never taking them.

“I haven’t had a catatonic episode in years,” Andrew replies just as Aaron reaches for his coffee. His hand pauses in the air for a telling second before he finishes the movement, pulling the mug in to cradle between his palms.

“Panic attack,” Aaron says, more considering than as a correction. He knows Andrew gets them - they have that in common - but he hadn’t considered the loss of time afterwards as anything, for all it’s not normal to him.

“Sometimes,” Andrew agrees. “Usually I don’t end up on the wrong side of campus though.”

“Fuck off,” Aaron mutters into the coffee. Maybe it’s a side effect of the Xanax or whatever it was that makes his tone pretty mild.

The door opens, and Robin bangs in, bag over her shoulder. “Hey…” When she sees the two of them together, she slows abruptly, her eyes flickering between the two of them. “...Everything okay?”

“Yes,” Andrew says. “Neil will take you to the court when you are ready.”

“Ohhhkay,” she says, with another squirrelly look before she bolts for the bedroom.

“You would think a Fox would be better at dealing with mental breakdowns,” Aaron remarks, because he can’t even pretend to understand Robin. Andrew is staring down the hall after her, and with Aaron’s face he almost manages to look thoughtful.

“You have cravings all the time,” Andrew says without looking back at Aaron.

Aaron bristles, surprised and annoyed about that. “Obviously.”

This earns him an almost-considering stare. Aaron hates it, and the expectant silence that accompanies it in particular.

Thankfully, that’s when Neil appears from the bedroom with Robin in tow, both of them half-geared for practice. Neil glances between them and then says, “Andrew?”

Andrew shakes his head, which Neil seems to accept without a word. Aaron stands, shedding the layers of blankets someone must have determinedly wrapped him in.

“Where are you going?” Neil asks, as though what Aaron does is in any way relevant to him.

Aaron gives him a withering look. “We have practice.”

“You’re excused for today,” Neil says, waving him off.

“We have a game in two days.”

“You’re of no use to me like this,” Neil replies, “either of you.” Then he leaves, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“What an asshole,” Aaron remarks into the following quiet.

 

* * *

 

Neil comes back with the news that Wymack has excused Aaron from classes today too. He also passes on the message ‘get your head screwed on straight’ without even a flicker of humour.

Though he doesn’t say as much, Aaron is grateful - he’s fucking tired, or maybe just flat. He showers with his eyes closed, texts Katelyn a half-hearted message to let her know he’s fine, and then goes to his own bed to sleep, hoping he’s not about to live through one of Andrew’s depressive episodes on top of everything else.

When he wakes up at five in the afternoon, his stomach snarling, he’s bemused to find Andrew on the couch in the suite he shares with Nicky and some of the younger guys on the team. “Did you pick the lock?”

“Yes,” Andrew replies without looking away from the TV. He has a bag of cashews he must have stolen from the cupboard in his lap.

“...great,” Aaron says. “Did you want something in particular?”

“No,” Andrew replies. He pops another cashew in his mouth.

Aaron watches him for a long moment, irritation itching at him. He’s not in the mood for a fight, though, and he thinks this moment could too easily turn into one. “I’m going to get dinner. Are you coming?”

Andrew sets aside the cashews and stands, giving Aaron an expectant look that Aaron takes as a yes. Aaron says again, “Great.”

Sitting in the cafeteria with just Andrew, in total silence, really takes Aaron back to high school. It’s not really a memory he appreciates right now, so he shoves it down and away.

“What’re we going to do about this?” he asks eventually. Andrew, who is sifting through his salad as though searching for something - Aaron has no idea what - looks up at him briefly before spearing a sliver of carrot on a single tine of his fork.

“Wait,” he suggests, twisting the fork in front of his face. “Are you ever actually hungry?”

_Not when I’m stressed_ , Aaron nearly says, before he figures that that little home truth is probably too revealing for the both of them. “What is waiting going to achieve?”

“Spontaneous reversal,” Andrew replies promptly. “What’s the alternative?”

“This didn’t happen spontaneously,” Aaron says, gesturing between the two of them. “What makes you think we’re just going to revert?”

“How do you know it wasn’t spontaneous?”

Aaron gives him a flat look. “Maybe it’s an undocumented occurrence between identical twins. Somehow I doubt it though.”

“Maybe I’m just going crazy,” Andrew muses.

“Folie à deux?”

“Bless you.”

Aaron rolls his eyes as he jerks open the chocolate bar on his tray, resigning himself to that as his entire meal. Turns out even his lack of appetite is no match for his brother’s body’s sweet tooth. “You speak four languages.”

“And you’re the one taking antipsychotics.”

The bread roll Aaron throws bounces squarely off of Andrew’s forehead and rolls away across the floor and under a table. Andrew gives him a warning look but otherwise doesn’t react.

“I know you know what an off-label use is,” Aaron says through his teeth, “And your logic is shit.”

“My logic is that the likelihood of having a shared psychotic episode is far higher than that of anything else.”

“You aren’t psychotic.” Of that, Aaron is certain.

“Neither of you are psychotic,” a voice interrupts. “Also, keep it down.”

Neil unerringly manages to sit next to Andrew-in-Aaron’s body, which is creepy in a lot of ways. However, despite that choice, he makes no move to touch Andrew. Now that Aaron thinks about it, he hasn’t seen them touch since it happened. While they’re pretty far from demonstrative that’s still unusual. Not that Aaron is going to say anything. The memory of last night is still clear in his mind, and he has a suspicion that Andrew probably would have seen that pitfall coming well before Aaron did.

“How do you know?” Andrew asks. He sounds genuinely curious, or at least his version of it.

“Because I would have to be psychotic, too,” Neil says. “Which I’m not.”

Aaron snorts softly. “Congrats.”

Neil gives him a level look. “What’s your theory?”

“I don’t care about that. I just want a solution,” Aaron says.

“Give it three days,” Neil suggests, less casual than he’s aiming for.

Andrew picks up on it too. “Three?”

“Just,” he says. “Three is a significant number.”

“To who?”

Neil shrugs.

He’s so _fucking annoying_ . Aaron repeats, through his teeth, “To _who?_ ”

Neil gives him a look which says that the feeling is entirely mutual. “I don’t know specifics. But when I searched on the internet the numbers three and seven came up a lot.”

“...you did an internet search? On what?”

Neil huffs out an aborted sigh. “Magic.”

Aaron stares at him for a moment. Then he pushes his tray aside and gets up. “Sure.”

Neither of them say anything as he goes.

 

* * *

 

It’s stupid to be angry over it. That doesn’t make any difference to Aaron, who, despite being intelligent, is regularly stupid in the worst ways. Like even giving his brother’s boyfriend the time of day, never mind the opportunity to seriously bring up the idea of magic over dinner.

Like stomping down to the library in a fit of frustration and sitting himself in front of a computer with the Google homepage open. It only takes about three goading flashes of the cursor before Aaron, muttering curses, types in ‘body swap’ and hits enter.

The first page is full of that Lindsay Lohan movie that came out a couple of years ago. That’s the level that Aaron has sunk to: he’s living a chick flick.

He reads the synopsis of the plot, thinks about the concept of being stuck like this until he and Andrew reconcile or understand each other better or something, and then resigns himself to being like this forever. Then he logs off the computer and leaves.

Katelyn answers her phone on the second ring. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi,” Aaron says. It’s early still on campus, so he’s just another student on his way somewhere, in his own little world. “Tell me about your day.”

“I missed you,” she replies immediately.

Aaron smiles despite himself. “Besides that.”

“Class was good. Practice was disastrous. The freshmen haven’t grown up yet.” This year’s squad selections are a small group of the most riotously different individuals ever forced to cooperate, listening to Katelyn tell it, and also according to her are lucky to have lived this long under the Vixens’ no-nonsense coach Samara. “I need to sleep for six years. What did you do today?”

“Slept,” Aaron says. “Got to take advantage of getting a day off where you can.”

“Feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” Aaron lies, and then, because he hates lying to her, “Sort of. Could be better.”

“Get Betsy to excuse you for tomorrow if you need it,” she says. “You work too hard.”

“So do you.”

“Yeah, but I’m a girl. We’re better at coping.” She's absolutely joking, but Aaron actually agrees with her.

Katelyn cries over her problems and hates it, but he appreciates that about her - things build up, she melts down, then she moves on. Aaron would have to cry for six months straight to get over the bullshit he’s compartmentalised. He drawls, “Yeah, probably.”

“Taking your meds?”

Aaron winces a little. “Yeah.” It’s technically true.

“Good,” she replies. “I’m proud of you. You’re a champ.”

“I love you,” Aaron says. The words rush out of him, catching him by surprise like they always do - not because he doesn’t know he feels it, but because he never expects himself to be able to actually say the words.

“I love you too,” she replies, easy as breathing. “Get some more rest, okay?”

“Will do,” he says, and when they’ve said their goodbyes and hung up he feels unmistakably lighter.

He’s planning on going straight back to his room and sleeping through the night, but of course the underclassmen are gathered in his suite playing video games and eating junk food. They cheer when he walks in, offering him a controller and a half-empty box of wilted fries, but he waves them off in favour of his bed.

In the bedroom, Nicky is curled up on his bunk with his laptop open. He glances up when Aaron walks in. “Hey! It’s Aaron.”

Erik’s familiar accented voice says, “Hi, Aaron,” over the laptop speakers. Nicky turns the screen around so they can see each other just long enough to awkwardly wave before twisting it back.

“I should go,” Nicky says to Erik, but his quick glance to Aaron is a giveaway.

Aaron gives his bed a longing look, and then says, “I’m going back out.”

“Oh, okay,” Nicky says, almost managing a normal amount of bland acceptance. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” Aaron replies. He’d have to be near-dead to say anything different to Nicky, who _fusses_. Aaron, who faded out of lack of attention as a kid, still has absolutely no idea how to deal with that. "You?"

He doesn't need to look to know that that makes Nicky smile. "I'm just fine. You going to Katelyn's?"

"Yes," Aaron lies. He debates taking a change of clothes and then mentally shrugs. He's been worse.

“See you,” Nicky chirps as he leaves, echoed by Erik’s quiet voice from the speakers.

When Aaron taps at the door of Andrew’s suite, Robin is the one to answer. She blinks, but steps aside to let Aaron in. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Aaron says. The blankets are still where he left them on the couch this morning, and he crawls back into them without another word.

There’s a long silence, and then the soft sound of Robin’s feet as she evidently resolves herself to ignoring him. He falls asleep to the gentle sounds of her doing dishes in the kitchen.

He half-wakes to low voices around him, Robin’s quick patter and Andrew’s slower drawl.

“...just been asleep.”

“Since when?”

“Uh, half an hour? Forty-five minutes? I think they’re being rowdy across the hall.”

“They must have forgotten we have a game this week.” Neil sounds unimpressed.

Aaron huffs out a hazy breath, shifting further into the blankets. The conversation over his head lulls into nothing and he settles back into a doze. It's not real sleep, though - he surfaces again to a darker room and more voices, warm and just barely aware.

“He’s taking this hard.”

“He’s rational. This isn’t.”

“Usually he just ignores things that upset him. Until they hit him in the face.”

“No one can run forever.” A pause. “You would know.”

“No one can run at all in your body. Your cardio conditioning is pathetic.”

There’s no reply to that. Aaron is nearly blissfully asleep again when Neil murmurs, “I miss you.”

“I’m right here.”

"It's not the same."

"I would have thought it was the same to you."

"I don't know how it works. I just know how it feels."

"Neil Josten. That almost sounds like self-awareness."

That’s the last Aaron hears.


	3. gone, gone, gone (you were never alone)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DONE. 
> 
> Thanks @redketchup for the final beta! A champ <3

He dreams again. He’s being manhandled into the back of a car, in a grip too tight even though he’s cooperating, he’s doing what they say, he’s  _ being good, Mom, no — _

He’s locked into place, watching bodies being loaded into the back of an ambulance — or a hearse, maybe — his mother, Andrew with his head lolling loose at the neck, Katelyn with a blood-red mouth —

They’re being taken away. He’s the only one left. He can’t move, he’s too slow, he’s fumbling, desperate, opening his mouth —

He wakes up at the sound of his name — sharp, commanding. It jerks him from sleep, brain first and body last, shaking out of his skin.

“It’s me,” Andrew says. “You’re dreaming.”

Aaron lies there, gasping like a fish on dry land, and then tries to fumble himself free of the blankets wrapped around him. He’s shivering too hard to manage it. After a moment, Andrew steps in and unwinds him with brisk hands.

“Do you always dream like this?” he asks. He’s just a shape in the dark — it must be early, still.

“No,” Aaron rasps. “What time is it?”

“Four.”

“Did I wake you?”

“You were loud.” That isn’t an answer, part of Aaron notes. 

He pushes himself to his feet, stumbling for the kitchenette sink and splashing his face with cold water. He’s sweaty and probably covered in tear-tracks, but he decided a while back that there isn’t much point in being ashamed of the shit his subconscious throws at him. His subconscious is a fucking asshole.

“Are you going to have a panic attack?” Speaking of fucking assholes.

“Fuck off,” Aaron replies, shaking his head like a dog to get the excess water off. The rest he wipes away with the hem of his hoodie. 

When he turns back, he jerks to a halt — Andrew is standing closer than he expected, well inside of arm’s reach. “Fuck! Make a noise when you move.”

“I was talking to you,” Andrew points out blandly. He’s leaning against the counter, and Aaron finds himself recognising his brother in his own body with a weird twist.  _ He _ doesn’t slouch like that.

“Whatever,” Aaron huffs, stepping around him and heading back to the couch. He doesn’t lie down this time, instead putting his back into the corner between the back and arm, blanket over his bent legs.

“You are very good at saying that while obviously still caring,” Andrew says from the kitchenette.

“It’s called being passive-aggressive. Go look it up in a dictionary,” Aaron says. “Also, you would know.”

“I’m not passive-aggressive.”

“You’re good at saying you don’t care when you do.” There’s no reply from behind Aaron to stop him, so he continues. “You’re not that special, you know. We’re all fucked up. We all know that it’s,” he stumbles on it, “hard to care. About things.”

Here he is again, stabbing into his brother’s dark. Trying to figure out what Andrew is capable of, after years of lies and misdiagnoses and silence and Andrew’s expectations like an albatross around their necks. Knowing he’s stubbed his toes on his own assumptions and just...trying not to fuck up. 

It’s really the best he can do. Try.

He casts Andrew a quick look, and gets nothing from him. It’s not encouraging.

“I might not get into Perelman,” Aaron says, the words coarse in his mouth. “But if we can share a dorm, we can probably share a state. Maybe share a meal, if you’re paying.” 

“Does the cheerleader agree with that plan?”

“ _ Her name is Katelyn _ ,” Aaron snaps, surprising himself. For all the reasons he has to hate Neil, he’s never done either him or Andrew the disservice of refusing to use his name.

Andrew gives him one of his evaluating lizard-looks. “Does  _ Katelyn _ agree with that plan?”

Aaron, still bristling, stares back at him for a long moment before he says, “She doesn’t like you. That’s why you’ll be paying.”

“That, and that I’ll have money.” There’s a twitch of something in his tone, just enough for Aaron to catch.

“I don’t care about your money.” He wouldn’t work as hard as he does if he was relying on, or even dreaming of, a magical surprise windfall. He’s always wanted to prove himself. That’s one thing he suspects Andrew doesn’t understand, or at least has never cared about.

There’s no reply. After a moment, Aaron turns away, slouching further down into the couch. Andrew hasn’t said anything outright horrible. Maybe that’s the best he can hope for.

Then Andrew says, “Are you hoping this is going to switch us back?”

Aaron closes his eyes. Sighs. “If I thought trying with you would cause something magical to happen, this would have happened when we were kids. Not now.”

“Do you—”

“Stop,” Aaron interrupts. “I said what I said. I know you think you have the market cornered on telling the truth, but I don’t lie to you.”

The look Andrew gives him is notably judgemental. “Don’t you?”

“Truthfulness is probably genetic,” Aaron says. He thinks Andrew is looking for a fight, not Aaron’s concession, but he’s too tired and too worn thin to give him the satisfaction. “Who the fuck knows where we got it from.”

 

* * *

Despite the long look Neil gives him, he doesn’t protest when Aaron climbs into the car in his gear for practice. Andrew, who is following at a more sedate pace, doesn’t get the same evaluating expression. This is one of the very few situations where Aaron can be considered the less-well-adjusted of the two of them, so he doesn’t exert the energy to be annoyed about it.

He’s not sure whether this is a special level of consideration from Neil, or whether it’s always like this and Aaron doesn’t usually notice when he’s in his own body. That second part is an uncomfortable idea.

Wymack doesn’t give him any shit, which is why Aaron very quietly likes him — he could have wrecked half the fucking court and Coach wouldn’t have cared as long as he had a good reason for losing it. He doesn’t even need to know the reason, and he has a sixth sense for whether it’s a good one or not.

They have a game tomorrow, so it’s a fairly easy gym session. Wymack has borrowed one of the perky PTs from the football team, who bullies the freshmen through a pilates workout and cheerfully ignores the barely-not-aimed-at-her cursing they’re all prone to.

Andrew’s body is impossibly inflexible, which has got to be connected to his inhuman stubbornness. Aaron attempts to touch his borrowed toes and determinedly doesn’t dissociate while he does it.

It’s fine. He’s lived through worse. There’s a little clock in the back of his head, counting down to three days, and then seven after that, and however long after that. 

Afterwards, he goes to his classes. He’s unsurprised to get a text from Betsy about booking a short notice session, which he ignores. He texts back and forth with Katelyn, carefully avoiding making any plans with her.

Going through the motions is easy enough, if he doesn’t think about it too hard. The thing that throws it off, of course, is Andrew.

“Here,” he says, bumping into Aaron and handing off a duffle that Aaron takes instinctively. For someone who would stab someone for doing the same to him, he’s really bad about appearing in other people’s personal spaces.

“What is it?” Aaron asks. 

“Goalie gear,” Andrew replies, and then leaves.

Well. Aaron presumes they’re exchanging places on court tonight. He can’t see how  _ that _ might go wrong.

He still shrugs on Andrew’s jersey in the evening though, as well as Andrew’s walk and posture - most of the Foxes wouldn’t notice the swap anyway, but Wymack would, and that’s not something any of them want to invite. The court looks different from the goal, Andrew’s oversized racquet balanced in his right hand.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Neil says from next to him. Aaron and Andrew have done this plenty of times, but this is the first time Aaron has been in Andrew’s position right here — side to side with Neil, as they often stand during downtime, not touching and talking quietly. It’s weird as hell.

Aaron swaps the racquet to his other hand. “And just stand here?”

“It wouldn’t exactly be out of character,” Neil replies with a tilt to his voice that might just be humour. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

And he does, for about the length of time the ball takes to cross from centre court to within striking distance of the goal. The racquet feels ungainly in his hands, but he thinks it might be more effort to stay still than it is to move.

He connects with the ball. Hard. It soars over the heads of the opposing stripe strikers and directly in line with his own where they’re waiting. Hana, unprepared, almost fumbles it before securing it in her net and taking off in the direction of the other goal.

Well. Muscle memory is a hell of a thing. 

Even Andrew-in-Aaron’s-body seems to be taking advantage of Aaron’s cardiovascular fitness, even if there are a few tells that give him away as someone who hasn’t ever played outside of goal. Mostly, it just looks like Aaron playing distractedly though. Considering that Andrew knows Aaron’s usual style of play, and Andrew’s own habit of fouling anyone who gets to close, Aaron is expecting more physicality, but there’s none of that. 

Maybe Aaron is just seeing things that aren’t there, but he thinks there’s —

The goal lights up red behind him, making him twitch. Neil, who would usually yell something scathing at Aaron, just gives him a look.

Muscle memory isn’t everything.

 

* * *

On the morning of the fourth day, Aaron is still in Andrew’s body after another night of unsettling dreams and broken sleep. He wasn’t really expecting the answer to be ‘magic numbers’ but he still finds himself frustrated. More than that: angry.

For once, he’s not the only one. Neil and Andrew are noticeably cool with one another, even Andrew’s unshakeable untouchability showing the cracks. Maybe that’s on Aaron — he’s always been the easier read. He can’t quite find it in himself to care.

“You don’t have to—” Neil starts as they’re getting into the car for morning practice.

Aaron’s not sure which of them Neil is talking to.  He’s still the one who snarls, for both Andrew and himself, “Shut up.”

There’s silence. Then Nicky mutters, “Ooohkay,” Robin elbows him, and Neil starts the car rather than trying again.

Practice isn’t great, though he does at least get to wear his own gear. Aaron, who has a later first class on Fridays, pours himself into the shower afterwards, sparing a moment to be deeply grateful for the stalls which mean he doesn’t have to worry about flashing Andrew’s scars on his arms. And if this disaster makes him understand Neil Josten better, he’s going to have to throw himself off of Fox Tower.

He’s been showering quickly and with as blank a mind as possible. It’s not that he’s squeamish — they’re  _ identical twins _ , at least in the ways that matter — but he knows without thinking about it that this has to be Andrew’s least favourite part, the body that’s his at someone else’s mercy. And just like that, Aaron, who has carefully not been thinking about that since Katelyn sent him spiralling the other night, suddenly feels lightheaded.

He swallows thickly. For the first time he thinks of this as a less ridiculous, senseless inconvenience, and more something that’s just unfair. And it’s not even because it’s unfair to  _ him _ .

He presses his forehead to the tiles, scalding water pouring down his back, and breathes slow through it like Betsy taught him. He’s not sure what the outcome would be of him fainting and drowning in his brother’s body, but he knows it wouldn’t be pretty.

He’s expecting to be the only one left in the locker room when he emerges, so he jumps a little when he realises Nicky is sitting on one of the benches fiddling with his phone. 

“You’re going to be late,” Aaron says. Nicky shrugs and pushes himself up, and his face is concerned. Damn — Aaron is going to experience the fussing anyway.

“Katelyn texted me,” Nicky says, careful like he’s defusing a bomb. It’s a wasted effort — it’s not even 9AM and Aaron is already exhausted again in the aftermath of yet another fucking anxiety attack. “She’s worried about you. So’m I. Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” Aaron says, and then, for fuck’s sake, “Not really.”

“I kinda figured,” Nicky says. “Anything I can do?”

Aaron nearly laughs, but holds it back because it’s an asshole move. He shrugs. “No.”

Nicky gives him a long look, stripped back of his usual laughing veneer. It’s a side that even Aaron rarely sees, and no less emotional for it. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Aaron replies, and then stays still as Nicky wraps a careful arm around his shoulders and pulls him into a hug. The contact is — good. It reminds Aaron that he’s gone days without human contact, which in turn reminds him that he used to go weeks without out of necessity and not think much of it. So he’s either getting soft or better adjusted. 

“Seriously, you’re going to be late to class,” he says into Nicky’s shoulder, just to hear him laugh.

 

* * *

There’s something Aaron definitely didn’t consider when he agreed to Andrew’s unspoken plan for them to swap places for their game that evening, and it’s that strikers are more than willing to try and foul on Andrew in their desperation to score. 

Aaron is technically more used to body contact, but it’s hard enough playing an unfamiliar position without people trying to trip him up at every opportunity. He’s already almost squandered the lead Robin got them during the first quarter, and he’s either wishing for half-time or death, whichever comes first. Also, it’s more obvious than ever to him that the junior defensemen are fucking  _ useless. _

He thinks his glare at Neil says as much, because after Aaron just barely saves another shot on goal and also barely resists breaking someone’s kneecap, he subs them off and brings Nicky and Andrew on in their places.

“Finally,” Nicky says, jogging on the spot. Andrew is silent, spinning Aaron’s racquet. It takes Aaron a second to recognise that as his own move when he’s feeling impatient. Whether it’s put on remains to be seen.

“Get me some space,” Aaron tells them both, brusque.

“Done and done,” Nicky replies, which is when the buzzer goes off for restart.

The other team gets possession almost straight away, their backliners taking advantage of their height over Neil to win the ball off of a Fox deal. Neil seems unbothered, doing a lazy turn to follow back up the court. Aaron only has a split second to notice that before there’s an opposition striker bearing down on him.

The ball passes from striker to dealer to striker, pressing towards Nicky’s side rather than Andrew/Aaron’s. That’s nice for Aaron’s ego, except for how they get around Nicky and a near-stationary Andrew —  _ fuck _ — and then press forward on Aaron.

He forgets himself and darts forward to meet them, because there’s nothing to make you aware of the size of an exy goal like being five feet tall and having to defend all of it, and nothing like being a backliner to make you mostly forget the goal. That just makes it easy for the striker with the ball to check him sideways so hard he loses his feet right at the edge of the goal circle.

The crowd only gets the very first beat of their booing out before Andrew takes the striker out from behind hard enough they go down face-first onto the floor. The ball, knocked free from their racquet, rolls across the ground past their second, very surprised, striker to Nicky, who scoops it up and fires it back down to Neil where he’s waiting by the opposing goal. He pivots, this time with his signature speed, and the goal lights red.

The crowd makes an equally sudden left turn back to roaring their pleasure. The refs are jogging in the direction of Aaron’s goal just as the downed striker, blood on his face, snarls something at a dispassionate Andrew as he climbs to his feet. Andrew gives him a salute with all the attitude of a middle finger and very clearly says, “Fuck you, cheat,” just in time to get reprimanded.

“Are you okay?” Nicky asks, hovering over Aaron as he picks himself up. Aaron bites back a sardonic reply in favour of silence, because Andrew wouldn’t say anything, and he’s fine besides the future bruise on his hip. It’s easy enough to shrug the pain off.

Andrew, warded off by the referees, who are handing the bleeding striker a red card under Neil’s unsmiling captainly supervision, throws Aaron back his racquet.

“‘Fuck you, cheat?’” Aaron asks him, almost amused despite himself. 

“If the shoe fits,” Andrew replies blandly.

“Cute,” Aaron says. “Actually keep them off me this time.”

Andrew offers him a salute, too. It’s no more polite than the last, but Aaron didn’t expect it to be.

 

* * *

Aaron doesn’t get fouled on again, and they win. 

Coach gives the three of them the walleye, but lets them back on the court for the final quarter in their usual configuration of Aaron-Nicky-Andrew. Aaron, whose arms are so sore after half time he’s going to need to ice them all night, nearly groans. Once the adrenaline hits, though, he forgets about it entirely.

There are going to be articles about Andrew Minyard’s shitty form tonight, but Aaron, who played goalie a couple of times back in high school, is pretty goddamn proud of himself when the final score is four goals in their favour. 

Andrew hovers at the edge of the celebratory crowd of Foxes, including the ones who have rushed off the bench, Nicky’s arm over his shoulder. Aaron watches, contemplating whether he’s going to be able to carry Andrew’s ridiculous racquet all the way to the bench or not.

“Good job,” Neil says from his side. Aaron doesn’t jump by pure force of will — he knows perfectly well that Neil always checks on Andrew first at the end of the game, something the journalists think is some kind of superstition because any other explanation is apparently impossible for them to contemplate, but he still somehow wasn’t expecting him to do it tonight.

Aaron considers his response, and settles on a bland, “Thanks.”

“If you go now, you can probably shower long enough to help you raise your arms tomorrow before Andrew wants to leave,” Neil suggests, and casually takes the goalie racquet off of Aaron to balance on his shoulder beside his own.

“...I can carry that,” Aaron lies.

“You don’t have to,” Neil replies, and he honestly looks puzzled that Aaron might protest. It figures: took him a year to figure out how being part of a team works, and now he’s here inflicting it on Aaron for his sins.

“Did you tell Andrew to pull that trick on the striker earlier?” Aaron asks, surprising himself.

Neil tilts his head, a confused half-smile crossing his face. “I don’t tell Andrew what to do.”

Aaron doesn’t reply, starting off of the court in the wake of the rest of the team. There’s a pissed-off,  _ did you ask him then?  _ on the back of his tongue, but he knows what the answer is. Neil follows along behind him.

“Fuck,” Neil mutters when they’re almost at the court door, and Aaron sees instantly what he means: on the other side of the plexiglass wall, Katelyn, smiling, is approaching Andrew in Aaron’s jersey with no idea at all that something isn’t right.

It’s something the Aaron and Katelyn have done dozens of times now — commiserated a loss with a hug, or celebrated a win with a wild, spinning kiss that always leaves the both of them laughing.

Of course, the last time she and Aaron saw each other face-to-face, he’d freaked out. That’s the only explanation he can think of for the way she stops just short of Andrew, holding out a hand as she says something inaudible over the roaring of the crowd.

And, instead of ignoring it, Andrew  _ takes  _ it.

It’s just for a moment — he says something back, her smile grows, they part ways so Andrew can hang up his racquet and retreat to the locker rooms. Katelyn rejoins the Vixens and doesn’t even glance Aaron’s way.

Andrew does, just for a moment — impassive through the visor of his helmet, but looking back.

 

* * *

The Foxes throw a party to celebrate. Aaron, wearing his usual numbered hoodie, is just grateful that the Vixens aren’t invited, because he’s too tired to bullshit well and would kill someone for a cigarette. He stays for just long enough to take a shot of vodka with a cheerful Nicky before sneaking out and heading up to the roof.

Of course, Neil and Andrew are already up there, a pack of cigarettes and a quarter of a bottle of whiskey between them. Neil is the only one with a cigarette lit, though he’s not smoking it. When he hears the door open he casts a quick look over his shoulder and half-smiles again, holding the barely-burned cigarette up in offering.

Aaron takes it, greedily inhaling the nicotine. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you about the dangers of secondhand smoke?”

“No,” Neil replies peaceably. He was probably too busy thinking he was going to be murdered to worry about dying of lung cancer anyway.

“Great,” Aaron says, taking his cigarette and retreating towards the other side of the roof rather than standing over the two of them in their relaxed tableau. He steps up to the edge of the roof, peering over it to the parking lot. 

Behind him, there’s silence, which may or may not be the result of his presence — it would hardly be out of character for the two of them to sit up here and not talk — and then Neil mutters something in Russian. Aaron doesn’t understand the comment, but he knows a command when he hears one.

He’s half-debating just smoking in the stairwell, smoke detectors be damned, when Andrew says, “Dinner.”

“What?” 

“Dinner,” Andrew repeats. When Aaron looks, he’s looking back, level and long. “Next year.”

“Oh.” Figures, really. They tackle all of their issues with each other by fighting other people. Exy, these days, apparently counts. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Andrew echoes, and then turns back to Neil and returns to silence. 

Well then. Aaron, bemused, finishes the cigarette, grinds it out under his trainer, and then leaves. 

Of course, he’s halfway through the roof access door when he smacks into Robin on the upper landing, hitting her shoulder to shoulder.

“Fuck!” Aaron says, and catches the handrail with one hand and Robin with the other to keep the both of them from falling down the stairs. She squeaks, clinging back.

“Sorry!” she says, and drops her grip on him like he’s red hot as soon as she regains her balance.

Aaron opens his mouth to snap at her, pauses, and then just sighs. “Be more careful.”

She blinks at him. “Oh, y-yeah, okay, yes.” 

_ Weirdo.  _ Aaron watches her just long enough to make sure she gets through the door without somehow getting injured and then heads back downstairs to join the party.

 

* * *

This time when Aaron wakes up next to Neil, he doesn’t roll out of bed. Instead he pulls up his sleeves, spending a moment looking at the unmarked skin of his inner wrists. Then he punches Neil in the shoulder.

“Asshole,” he says, “I thought you guys weren’t touching at the moment.”

“We don’t touch in bed,” Neil mumbles into the pillow. 

“That honestly explains a lot.”

Neil moves just enough to give Aaron a glare from one bleary visible eye. “Get out.”

“Done and done,” Aaron says, clambering over Neil and sliding down from the bed just quietly enough he shouldn’t wake the others up.

By the time he gets out of the bedroom, Andrew is in the kitchen making coffee. Without looking up, he says, “Your technique is terrible.”

“My what?”

“Technique,” Andrew repeats, raising one arm in demonstration. Or, attempting to raise it. He doesn’t get much past shoulder-height.

Aaron considers his own body, which feels pretty normal for a post-game morning. “You really should up your cardio.”

Andrew makes a huffing noise that may or may not be his equivalent of a snort. Then he takes two mugs of coffee, slipping past Aaron and heading for the bedroom.

Aaron finds his keys on the kitchen bench alongside his phone, letting himself into his suite while listening to the phone ring. The lounge is quiet, his roomates no doubt sleeping off last night. 

“Hey,” Katelyn says, warm and wide awake. “How are you?”

“Good,” Aaron says, and means it.

 

* * *

Andrew, still wearing one of Aaron’s shirts, closes the bedroom door quietly behind himself with his foot. There’s rustling from overhead, and Neil says, “Hey.”

Andrew hands up both the mugs, and then climbs the ladder, the loft bed complaining gently under the addition of his weight. 

“Welcome back,” Neil murmurs, and then something more indistinct.

“I was right here,” Andrew replies, and it’s interesting how it really sounds like him in his own body now.

“I couldn’t do this though,” Neil says, and there’s a moment of quiet which is almost certainly the two of them kissing. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“That’s my line.”

“I am fine,” Andrew repeats, ignoring Neil’s crack. They settle, and then it’s just quiet and the smell of coffee. Until Andrew adds, “Both of us are.”

Robin, curled below them in her bed, grins into her pillow. Sometimes people just need a push. Fingers buzzing gently, she settles in to sleep a little longer.


End file.
